Of Moths and Flames
by Besprizornye
Summary: Flannery might be a brand-new Gym Leader, but she has already proven herself to be a strong contender. But how will she fare against a trainer that she never thought would dare to challenge her, a Bug Maniac?


"The battle between the Lavaridge Gym Leader and the challenger, Kyle Swanson of Verdanturf Town, will now commence! Both sides are allowed three pokémon each with only the challengers allowed substitutions!"

Flannery grinned and cracked her knuckles. This was going to be her fifth gym challenge this week and she had already lost track of how many trainers had tried to battle her for the Heat Badge since she had taken over as Gym Leader for her grandfather two months ago. Some of them had beaten her, but most of them had not, and Flannery was confident that this one was going to go the same way.

"I'll start off with Slugma!" she announced, and she detached one of the red and white poke balls on her belt and thumbed the button in the center to resize it and then sent forth her first battling pokémon. It took shape from the red light as a small creature that was made of orange flesh that bubbled up from within and flowed down its body to constantly reshape itself. The only parts of its body that stayed the same were its dull yellow eyes and, over them, large shapes that looked like bushy eyebrows.

The trainer challenging her was a year or two younger than she was, so still older than a lot of the usual trainers that came to the Lavaridge Gym. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a blue button-up shirt. His eyes were obscured not only by the steam rising off of the gym but also by his thick horn-rimmed glasses. When he saw Flannery's choice of pokémon, he grinned and opened up the case that he had carried into the gym. Inside of it was his own set of poke balls, but these ones were almost uniformly white on the bottom and blue crisscrossed with a black pattern on top. He selected one and gingerly removed it from its spot in his case. Then, with a shout, he declared, "Masquerain! Let's do this!"

The pokémon that the challenger had chosen was a white creature with a small orange face and a set of large wings that gave the impression of a set of predatory eyes glaring at Slugma, causing the orange pokémon to shrink back as Masquerain darted around the air.

It was not an unimpressive pokémon, but Flannery wrinkled her nose all the same. "Is that a bug-type pokémon?" she asked.

"Of course!" responded Kyle. Behind him, there arose a titter from the girls and boys that had accompanied the challenger to the gym.

"Don't you know that this is a fire-type gym?" Kyle nodded again, and a smirk was spreading across his acne-strewn face. "And bugs are weak against fire?"

Again, the girls giggled, and Flannery bit her tongue. Kyle was loving it and said, "Let's just see how it goes, okay?"

"Whatever," said Flannery. "We'll teach you some respect! Slugma! Use your flamethrower attack!"

Slugma slithered forward and belched out a stream of fire at its airborne foe. But the challenger was quick and he shouted, "Deflect it with air cutter!"

Masquerain brought its wings together in front of it in a mighty thrust that sent an invisible blade hissing through the air. When it met Slugma's attack, it split the fiery blast in two, and Masquerain danced through the gap, completely unharmed.

"Not bad," said Flannery, "but I still have the advantage!"

"Not for long," Kyle shot back, then he ordered, "Use double team, Masquerain!"

His pokémon began to buzz and vibrate and then it raced in a circle around Slugma, leaving a string of afterimages that were indistinguishable from their creator. Slugma slithered around the sandy field to examine the white and orange shapes that were suddenly surrounding it, but it had no idea which of them was real.

Flannery didn't know either, but she refused to let that slow her down. "Rock Throw, Slugma! Take 'em all out!"

At first, it did not look like Slugma was doing much of anything, but then it opened up its mouth and sent out small missiles of lava that it had solidified inside of its body to be as heavy and hard as stone. One by one, the gooey creature launched these rocks at the shimmering circle of pokémon around him and one by one its targets were revealed to be phantasms. Slugma kept attacking but the real Masquerain was not among them.

Flannery was just as confused as her pokémon until she saw movement and looked up to see Kyle's pokémon unfolding its wings and swooping down from where it had been hiding among the ceiling lights. As it flew, it rattled them and filtered their light through its vividly patterned wings. Slugma looked up in confusion, but it was exhausted from its own attack and unprepared for a counterattack.

As such, it was unable to move out of the way as Kyle ordered, "Bubblebeam, Masquerain!", and his pokémon breathed out a stream of multicolored bubbles that pelted Slugma and caused it to cry out in pain with each blow. Each bubble that hit Slugma's viscous body turned the orange lava-like flesh dull and gray.

Slugma tried to scoot away from its attacker, but it was even slower than usual as its hardening flesh weighed it down. Masquerain kept up the pressure and bludgeoned its retreating opponent with a steady stream of bubbles until Slugma's movements slowed to a stop and it slumped over into the sand.

Flannery couldn't believe her eyes, and only barely trusted her ears when the gym's referee stepped forward and raised a blue flag in Kyle's direction and announced, "Slugma is unable to battle! The winner is Masquerain!"

Having one of her pokémon faint during a battle wasn't a new experience for Flannery, and her body reacted before her mind did by lifting Slugma's poke ball and recalling it in a dazzle of red light. But when she heard one of the girls watching the challenger squeal, "Ooh, did you see that? Kyle, you're doing great!", and saw the cocky grin on the teenager's pock-marked face, Flannery grit her teeth and reached for her next pokémon.

"You got lucky against Slugma," she shouted across the battlefield, "but your luck is about to run out! Go Camerupt!"

There was another burst of light and this time the pokémon that was standing in front of Flannery was a heavy four-legged pokémon with a flat face and dull expression. It was covered in shaggy orange fur except for where two miniature volcanoes jutted out of its back. Camerupt snorted and pawed the ground with one of its hoofed paws. Flannery grinned wickedly and said, "Charge!" Camerupt bellowed in kind and charged straight at Masquerain, who was flitting around the center of the field.

Masquerain gave a squeak and took off until it was directly above Camerupt. "Not a problem!" said Kyle coolly. "Hit Camerupt with your Bubblebeam, Masquerain."

The white and orange pokémon spun around in the air so that it was facing down towards Camerupt and launched another string of bubbles at the larger pokémon's back. Camerupt groaned in pain and annoyance as the bubbles made contact, but it held fast and waited for its trainer's command.

Flannery was quick to oblige. "Lava Plume!"

Back on the field, Camerupt began to shift back and forth and finally opened its mouth and roared, only for the sound to be drowned out by the twin explosions of the volcanoes on its back. A towering flow of lava burst forth from both and caught Masquerain by surprise and knocking the flying pokémon spinning through the air. The attack petered out and the magma fell back to earth, covering the field, and Masquerain fell too.

The bug pokémon was badly burned and hardly moving except for some twitching of one of its wings. The referee stepped forward again, but this time he lifted a red flag towards Flannery and announced, "Masquerain is unable to battle! Camerupt is the winner!"

The whole episode was so sudden and unexpected that the challenger and his friends had nothing to say. Kyle could only return his pokémon to its poke ball and reach for his next one.

"How does it feel?" asked Flannery. "I bet you'll think twice before bringing a bug pokémon to a fire-type gym again!"

To her chagrin, Flannery's taunt elicited a wide smile from Kyle. In a burst of action, he reached down into his box of poke balls, seized one of the few red and white ones, and sent out his next pokémon. "Go, Dustox!"

The pokémon that emerged in front of him was another airborne insect. It had a small purple body with yellow eyes and antennae and was kept aloft with a pair of green wings broken up by patterns of red scales. It flitted back and forth with far less grace than Masquerain, but its unsteady movements lent Dustox an aura of danger that its teammate could not match.

"Another bug?" said Flannery. She was forcing back a laugh. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

"Call me a slow learner," Kyle said. Then, his voice took on a harder edge and said, "Go, Dustox! Use Toxic!"

"Toxic?"

Dustox darted forwarded, driven by its rapidly flapping wings, and, when it was over Camerupt, it spit out a glob of dark purple that went into the opening of one of the volcanoes on the other pokémon's back. Camerupt groaned in pain as the poison began to spread through its body, and it turned around to face Dustox.

Flannery scoffed, "That's a pretty cowardly way to fight! But we'll just have to end this now!" She snapped her long fingers and said, "Camerupt! Flamethrower!"

Her pokémon's dull eyes narrowed and it launched a line of fire from its mouth directly at Dustox.

Kyle was too quick, however, and he ordered, "Protect, Dustox!"

In an instant, a wall of shimmering green energy spread in front of Dustox and shielded the purple and green pokémon from the fiery attack. When Camerupt had finished, its foe was unharmed and flying around as carefree as ever. Flannery frowned and ordered, "Use Flamethrower again, Camerupt!"

"Dustox, Protect again!"

Once more, Camerupt attacked and Dustox defended itself, but this time gaps appeared in the latter's protection and flames licked through the gaps to singe Dustox's wings. It flew backwards in obvious distress and Flannery smiled. "I knew we would get through!" Then, her pokémon lurched on its feet and then shook its head back and forth sluggishly. "Okay," the gym leader said, more to herself than to her pokémon or her challenger, "we'll have to make it fast then." Then, she called out, "Camerupt, Sunny Day!"

Even though it was obviously in pain, her shaggy pokémon gathered energy in its mouth in the shape of a ball and then released it up into the air. The gym had already been warm before, but now the heat was even more oppressive, and the light emitted by the ball of energy would have been blinding if it had not been for the coils of steam in the air. Flannery was more or less comfortable, but her opponent was sweating through his blue shirt and his friends were fanning themselves with their hands.

"Too hot for you?" called Flannery.

Despite his discomfort, Kyle was still smiling, and he responded with plenty of good cheer, "Don't count me out just yet!" Then, to Dustox, he said, "Use Moonlight."

Dustox flapped its green wings and drew closer to the glowing orb. Once it was close enough, Dustox basked in the light and, to Flannery's immense disappointment, the blackened sections of its wings and body resumed their original color. Soon, there was no sign that Dustox had been hurt whatsoever.

Back on the floor, Camerupt gave an uncomfortable groan and lurched again. Flannery snapped, "Camerupt! Use Flamethrower and don't let up, no matter what!"

Her pokémon tried to nod, but doing so hurt too much, so it launched straight into its attack. Kyle ordered Dustox to shield itself, and the shimmering wall of green armor appeared only just in time to meet the torrent of flames gushing out from Camerupt's mouth. Both trainers were staring intensely at the clash, waiting to see which of their pokémon would slacken first. Once again, cracks were appearing in Dustox's protective screen and flames were licking at its wings and purple body, but the intensity of Camerupt's attack was diminishing as well, until it was suddenly cut off.

Camerupt gave a cough and then a belch and then toppled forward. Its face landed in the sand, followed by its heavy body with a heavy "whump" that shook the entire building. It twitched its tail a few times and groaned, but then it was still. The referee stepped forward again and Flannery imagined that she heard reproach in his voice when he lifted his blue flag again and declared, "Camerupt is unable to battle! Dustox is the winner!"

She could see the challenger's smirk and his entourage chattering behind him, but Flannery did not hear anything except for the sound of her blood pounding in her ears. She returned her fallen pokémon to the safety of its poke ball and then said in a low, dangerous voice, "I won't let you humiliate the Lavaridge Gym. Not after my grandfather entrusted it to me." She roughly detached one of the poke balls on her belt, resized it, and then sent forth her final pokémon. "Torkoal, let's do this!"

Torkoal was an orange-scaled pokémon with a long neck and a black shell that glowed with red heat in the spaces between the heavy plates. It squinted at Dustox flapping weakly on the other side of the field and snorted out twin jets of steam. "We're going to end this, right now!" said Flannery with a laugh. "Overheat!"

"Dustox, use Protect!" cried Kyle, but his order came too late and the hazy shield that Dustox erected was too feeble to hold back the intense blast of energy that Torkoal shot from its mouth. It was a flame so hot that it was white, and it was brighter than the orb of light that Camerupt had produced that was still lingering over the battling pokémon. Everyone watching the battle had to look away from it. When the dust had settled, Dustox was on the ground.

Kyle was already returning it when the referee raised his flags again and put to words what everyone already knew, "Dustox is unable to battle! Torkoal is the winner!"

The challenger was still calm and collected as he reached into his box of poke balls and brought out his next pokémon. That annoyed Flannery. She was used to being dismissed, but people almost always changed their minds after a display of Torkoal's raw power. What made this trainer so confident that he could win?

Her confusion only mounted when Kyle sent out his chosen pokémon. "Shedinja!"

"Another bug?" Flannery nearly screamed. It didn't make any sense, but sure enough, floating idly in front of Kyle was a dull yellow-brown pokémon with a hollow look in its beady black eyes.

Its trainer spread his hands apologetically and explained, "Some of my friends were insulting bug pokémon, and I bet them that I could beat you, Hoenn's premiere fire-type expert, with a team of my beloved bugs." Behind him, the boys and girls were nodding and smiling, and Kyle looked back at them and then said to Flannery, "It looks like you aren't as much of a challenge as we thought."

"You haven't won yet," snarled Flannery and she roared, "Torkoal, Overheat again!"

Torkoal gave a cry and then it unleashed another torrent of energy, this time bright red.

Shedinja's trainer was ready this time, and he called out, "Dig!" The mute pokémon dropped out of the air like a stone, but it didn't stop when it reached the sand but instead continued to sink as though the ground wasn't there until it was completely out of sight. When it saw that its foe was moving, Torkoal had tried to redirect the stream of energy that was exploding from its mouth, but it was too hard to control and Shedinja had escaped.

"Think you can just run away and hide?" asked Flannery. "We'll flush you out! Torkoal, use Body Slam!" Her pokémon nodded to show that it understood and then it started to bound up and down on the ground, shaking the ground and sending sprays of sand flying up with each jump.

As it was rearranging the field, Torkoal was unaware that Shedinja had emerged out of the sand behind it. Flannery saw it, however, and she shouted, "Torkoal! Behind you!"

Her pokémon turned around in a lumbering circle, but Kyle was anticipating that and he calmly ordered, "Sand Attack, Shedinja." Just when Torkoal's neck had finally craned towards its opponent, the small dully colored pokémon threw sand at its eyes with its clawed forelimbs. Torkoal reeled back and gave a confused cry, and then, without any prompting from its trainer, it tried to counterattack. This time it's fire was both less powerful and wildly off-target. Kyle and his cheerleaders scattered out of the way of the stray attack.

"Shake it off," cried Flannery, but it was hard for her pokémon to focus on clearing the sand out of its eyes with Shedinja pelting its shelled body with its claws. Torkoal tried to focus, but its temper finally flared and it tried another Overheat attack aimed at where it thought that Shedinja was. Unfortunately, Torkoal's guess was wrong, and this time it was Flannery who needed to get out of the way.

"Your Torkoal isn't very cool under pressure," said Kyle, his dark eyes shining behind his thick glasses. "Maybe you need to train it some more."

"Be quiet!" Flannery snapped. Then, she directed her anger toward Torkoal and said, "Get your head together and fight back!" Torkoal finally managed to clear its eyes and it stomped towards Shedinja, firing off small burst of embers with each step that it took. With surprising nimbleness, the bug pokémon flitted in-between each of the petty attacks. But Torkoal was shepherding Shedinja into a corner and it was rapidly running out of space to maneuver.

"Use Dig to get away!" ordered Kyle, but just as Shedinja began to dip towards the floor, Torkoal sent out a small spray of red sparks in its path and Shedinja had to stop its descent in order to avoid making contact with them.

"I know about all about shedinja," said Flannery. "All it takes is for one attack to land and it'll be out of this battle and you'll lose."

"You're right," conceded her opponent as he watched his pokémon continue to dart in-between Torkoal's attacks. But then, suddenly, the attacks stopped and instead of fire all that came out of Torkoal's mouth was a harsh wheeze and black soot. "But it looks like your pokémon's out of firepower!"

The triumph that had been written on Flannery's face turned to just as obvious shock. "What?"

"You used Overheat too many times and exhausted Torkoal's ability to produce fire," explained Kyle. He sounded like a teacher instead of a teenager and that was almost as annoying as her pokémon hacking and coughing on the battlefield instead of winning, but only almost.

"That doesn't matter, we still have other attacks! Torkoal, use Body Slam!" Her awkward pokémon pulled back on its haunches and then leapt at Shedinja, but its orange and black body passed through Shedinja as though the bug pokémon wasn't there.

Kyle laughed and said, "I thought you said that you knew all about my pokémon, but you obviously forgot that you can't hurt a ghost-type pokémon physically! We aren't under that restriction, are we, Shedinja? So, use Scratch!"

While Torkoal was still trying to puzzle out why it wasn't standing on top of a squished bug pokémon, Shedinja swooped in behind it and raked its shell with its claws. The attack made a horrible sound that caused everyone in the gym to grit their teeth, but Torkoal looked more confused by the attack than injured, and it slowly turned around to get a look at its floating foe.

"Ha! Torkoal might not be able to hurt it, but Shedinja's weak attacks can't get through Torkoal's hard shell!"

"Maybe," said Kyle. He paused to push his glasses up his nose, "But your torkoal still has weak points."

"Not for long! Use Iron Defense!"

At its trainer command, Torkoal withdrew inside of its shell. Shedinja flew by and tried scratching at it, but without result. When the other pokémon had finished its attack, Torkoal tried to poke its head out, but quickly retreated back to safety when Shedinja dived past to try and land a blow with its claws on Torkoal's face.

"So, it's a stalemate then?" asked Kyle as he watched Shedinja go in for another futile attack. Behind him, his friends were starting to mutter amongst themselves and trickle off to the gym's exit by ones and twos until they were all gone. They thought that there was nothing exciting about the battle now.

"I don't think so," said Flannery. "It might take a while, but Torkoal is going to recharge and get its energy back and then it'll be able to finish off your creepy bug!"

Kyle adjusted his glasses and said, "I was happy to settle this with a draw, but if you'd rather fight it out to the finish, Shedinja and I can make that happen. Despite his words, he was smiling in anticipation, and the grin only became more pronounced when he jabbed his finger out and shouted, "Shedinja! Use your Screech attack!"

The strange pokémon began to emit a terrible wailing sound that made Flannery imagine someone dying. It echoed around the entire gym and made everyone cover their ears. As awful as the sound was for the humans, Torkoal was subjected to a far more intense barrage of sound as Shedinja flew in low and screamed into one of the openings of the larger pokémon's shell. The shriek bounced around inside of Torkoal's stronghold and grew so unbearable that its orange head and limbs reappeared only so that the stunned creature could try and cover its ears from the aural onslaught.

As it did so, Shedinja attacked Torkoal once, twice, three times with its claws, leaving deep scratches in its opponent's body. But since it was screeching during its attacks, Torkoal did not try to protect itself by retreating back into its shell. Instead, it was desperate only to muffle Shedinja's cries of pain and torment.

Flannery tried to order her pokémon to go back into its shell, to fight back, or to do anything, but the combination of the racket that Shedinja was making and its own efforts to drown the other pokémon out meant that Torkoal couldn't respond to her commands. She was reduced to watching her prized battling pokémon be marred by attack after attack.

When Shedinja finally relented in both its screeching and its scratching, Torkoal rose shakily to its feet and Flannery thought that she finally had a chance to counterattack. "Torkoal, use your-", she started to say, but then she saw it stumble and then land on the sand to lay motionless. She stood there in her gym, her grandfather's gym, and watched the referee slowly raise the blue flag.

"Torkoal is unable to battle. Shedinja is the winner. Kyle, the challenger, wins the match!"

Kyle returned his pokémon back to its poke ball and Flannery mirrored him, but she felt numb. That feeling stayed with her even as she handed Kyle his prize, the same red-orange emblem that she had been entrusted with. She was only supposed to give it out to the best of trainers, but here she was handing it over to a trainer who specialized in _bugs_!

"Thanks," the challenger said flippantly. "That was a pretty good battle, huh?" When Flannery did not respond, he just shrugged, picked up his box of pokémon, and then walked out of the Lavaridge gym whistling to himself.

The next person who tried to comfort Flannery was the referee. He had worked for her grandfather and he tried to cheer her up by telling her that even Lavaridge's greatest trainer, a former member of the Elite Four, had lost battles to challengers, but the words rang hollow to Flannery's ears. Losing was one thing, but losing to a team of pokémon that you were supposed to have an advantage of was much, much worse.

When he saw that his words weren't having any effect on her, the gym's referee left, and Flannery was alone in the gym. She didn't know how much time she spent standing there looking blankly at the floor and trying to figure out what had gone wrong, but it was dark when she left the gym. While she was waiting for the rooms above the gym to be refurbished, Flannery was staying in the Lavaridge Pokémon Center and she was able to drop off her beaten pokémon to the nurse there to be healed. Some people tried to engage her in small talk, but Flannery didn't respond. Instead, she slipped out the back of the center to the hot springs and had herself a long soak.

While she wallowed in the water, Flannery's thoughts chased each other around and around. Despite her initial anger, she knew in her heart that her pokémon were not at fault. They were very loyal and well-trained, not to mention powerful. Her feelings about the challenger himself underwent a similar evaluation. He didn't win through cheap tricks, but superior strategy, and she had been too blind to see it! What gym leader was she that she couldn't come up with a strategy beyond attack, attack, attack? Not a very good one, reflected Flannery, and that thought stayed with her all night.

The next day, she awoke still feeling bad and, after eating breakfast and picking up her pokémon, went to the gym. To her surprise, the referee was there waiting for her. "You have a challenger," he said, and he sounded sympathetic. Then Flannery noticed the girl standing next to him, a fresh-faced preteen with brown hair underneath a red and white bow.

This new challenger smiled at the gym leader and waved, but Flannery's stomach was already doing backflips and she just kept her head down and muttered, "Give me a few minutes to get ready," to the referee.

Inside of the gym, it was as warm as ever, but to Flannery it felt unusually stifling instead of welcoming. She took a few deep breaths and made her way over to her side of the battlefield. There was no time to prepare, but Flannery still tried to run through her pokémon and come up with a new way of using them, but she stopped herself when she realized that she was only re-fighting her last battle, not looking ahead. Her grandfather wouldn't be so hung up on this loss, but, then again, he wouldn't have lost in the first place. That was the tenor of Flannery's feelings when the door opened and the challenger strode into the gym accompanied by the referee.

Flannery took a deep breath and then started to babble, "Welcome… No, wait. Puny Trainer, how good to see you've made it here! I have been entrusted with the… No, wait." She just couldn't stop. "I am Flannery, and I'm the Gym Leader here! Uh… Dare not underestimate me, though I have been Leader only a short time! With skills inherited from my grandfather, I shall, uh…"


End file.
